Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/267971 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
MUNI ECON Working Paper No. 2022-09
Publisher: 
Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Brno
Abstract: 
Social media play a relevant role in shaping social attitudes and economic behaviors of individuals. One of the first very well-known examples of social media campaign is the Ice Bucket Challenge (IBC), a charity campaign that went viral on social networks in August 2014 aiming at collecting money for the research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We rely on UK longitudinal data to investigate the causal impact of the Ice Bucket Challenge on pro-social behaviors. In detail, this study shows that having been exposed to the IBC increases the probability of donating money, and it increases the amount of donating money among those who donate at most £100. We also find that exposure to the IBC has increased the probability of volunteering and the level of interpersonal trust. However, all these results, but the one on the intensive margins of donations, have a short duration, limited to less than one year, supporting the prevalent consensus that social media campaigns may have only short-term effects.
Subjects: 
Donations
Volunteering
Altruism
Social media campaigns
Ice bucket challenge
JEL: 
D64
O35
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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